Do you consider your body a great, blank canvass for decorating with tattoos, piercings, and other odd embellishments that didn’t come standard?  Then you’re in the company of millions of people around the world in all times and all walks of life who are creators, or at least wearers, of body art.  In the United States, most body art that is popular and widespread involves “getting inked” or tattooed.   Once looked down upon by “civilized” members of society, or only appreciated on the forearms of enlisted sailors, tattoos can now be found on the ankles of teachers, the shoulders of doctors, or the buttocks of lawyers.  Many people view tattoos as a way to express themselves symbolically, with or without words associated.  More popular in recent years have been images and words blended together, either with colorful inks or simple black, in swirling and hard to decipher shapes.  

Some people still stick to the more traditional “single symbol” tattoo style:  they may have a single flower, a leaf, a unicorn, or a heart or star.  They may be in color, or may not be.  Why is this considered art, when the person wearing it did not actually put it on themselves?

“The truth is a lot of people do design their own tattoo art work,” said Miles Husker, a tattoo parlor owner from West Virginia.  ”They draw it out on paper, color it, bring it to me.  I just superimpose the image on their skin.”

He did admit however that many people come in and just want to flip through a catalog and pick something out.  There are also people who describe in words what they imagine, letting the tattoo artist create the art for them on paper and then, if they like it, have it permanently added to their skin.

“In that case, yeah, I guess I’m the artist and they are like a walking art show for me,” Husker added.

Does it really matter who designed the art people wear on their bodies, or is the real point of it all that it is art for art’s own sake?  I think many would agree that, just like in the case of jewelry, sweaters, or designer gowns, everything we wear is some kind of artistic expression (with the exception of industrially manufactured clothing duplicated with little or no imagination.)  Art is a worth end of its own accord, and the people who wear it as part of their identity are equally artist and canvass.